Your Shelf Life: 5 Books to Read in May

A curated list of this month's top reads

In her diaristic novel Motherhood, Sheila Heti explores a bedrock life decision. Instead of seeing motherhood as a foregone conclusion, Heti’s narrator admits to deep skepticism about being a parent.

Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk’s satirical Adjustment Day involves a plot to destabilize the government and set up warring ethno-states with names like “Blacktopia” and “Gaysia.”

From the author of the brilliant Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner, comes The Mars Room, the story of a stripper and single mother who murders a stalker and is given two life sentences in a California prison.

The Last Samurai’s Helen DeWitt combines literary theory, math, and satire in Some Trick, a cerebral collection of 13 stories that digs into the publishing industry, among other topics.

A piano teacher’s student is also a thief in the opening work of Last Stories by the late William Trevor. The collection includes 10 masterful short stories, six of which have never been published.